Astaire Quotes

Did any artist ever bring more pure joy to more people than Fred Astaire? ~ Jack Kroll

Fred Astaire told me things I will never forget. Gene Kelly also said he liked my dancing. It was a fantastic experience because I felt I had been inducted into an informal fraternity of dancers, and I felt so honored because these were the people I most admired in the world. ~ Michael Jackson

When Ginger Rogers danced with Astaire, it was the only time in the movies when you looked at the man, not the woman. ~ Gene Kelly

Mick Jagger moves like a parody between a majorette girl and Fred Astaire. ~ Truman Capote

I spent an entire evening seated between Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, being charmed from either side. It was pure Hollywood magic. ~ Lorna Luft

I studied dancing for 13 years. And loved to dance. Always wanted to dance with Fred Astaire. ~ Lauren Bacall

Sure he was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything [Fred Astaire] did, .. backwards and in high heels.
From: Frank and Ernest by Bob Thaves, art by Bob Thaves. ~ Bob Thaves

Fred Astaire represented the aristocracy, I represented the proletariat. ~ Gene Kelly

Chance is the fool's name for Fate ~ Fred Astaire

When I was young, I ran to see Astaire and Rogers, Huston, Lubitsch - they were formative for me. I also read 'Flash Gordon' when I was 6, but if I were still reading it when I was 16, I'd have been an imbecile. ~ Lina Wertmuller

I wish I was born in that era: dancing with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, going to work at the studio dressed in beautiful pants, head scarves, and sunglasses. ~ Catherine Zeta-Jones

Astaire never thought of what he was doing as balletic, but Kelly was always trying to dance with women on points. And his choreography is so showy and flashy. He always looks self-satisfied to me. ~ Matthew Bourne

You see, as far as the man's personality goes, there's no one who can touch Fred Astaire. He's unique. ~ Donald O'Connor

[on Fred Astaire] Astaire is the motherless man-about-town, all sophistication quite debonair, yet with a lope in his walk rather than a swagger, for -- despite his receding hair -- he is essentially boyish, youthful, innocent. ~ Karel Reisz

When Fred Astaire danced, everything in this world was perfect. ~ Stanley Donen

I haven't said it yet, but it seemed implied, that cinema for me was the American one, current Hollywood productions. "My" period goes roughly from The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (Henry Hathaway, 1935) with Gary Cooper and Mutiny on the Bounty (Frank Lloyd, 1935) with Charles Laughton and Clark Gable, to the death of Jean Harlow (which I relived many years later like the death of Marilyn Monroe, in an era more aware of the neurotic power of every symbol), with lots of comedies in between, the mystery-romances with Myrna Loy and William Powell and the dog Asta, the musicals of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the crime pictures of Chinese detective Charlie Chan and the horror films of Boris Karloff. I didn't remember the names of the directors as well as the names of the actors, except for a few like Frank Capra, Gregory La Cava, and Frank Borzage, who represented the poor rather than the millionaires, usually with Spencer Tracy: they were the good-natured directors from the Roosevelt era; I learned this later; back then I consumed everything without distinguishing between them too much. American cinema in that moment consisted of a collection of actors' faces without equal before or after (at least it seemed that way to me) and the adventures were simple mechanisms to get these faces together (sweethearts, character actors, extras) in different combinations. ~ Italo Calvino

Some people seem to think that good dancers are born, but all the good dancers I have known are taught or trained.. ~ Fred Astaire

I want to do with skates what Fred Astaire is doing with dancing. ~ Sonja Henie

While I was making my solo films, RKO was busily trying to get me and Fred Astaire back together. The studio wanted to capitalize on the success of 'Flying Down to Rio' and realized that the pairing of Rogers and Astaire had moneymaking potential. ~ Ginger Rogers

Dancing is a sweat job. ~ Fred Astaire

I had some ballet training but didn't like it. It was like a game to me. ~ Fred Astaire

She had died peacefully, in her sleep, after an evening of listening to all of her favorite Fred Astaire songs, one crackling record after another. Once the last chord of the last piece had died out, she had stood up and opened the French doors to the garden outside, perhaps waiting to breathe in the honeysuckle one more time. ~ Anne Fortier

I just put my feet in the ground and move them around. ~ Fred Astaire

I'm really influenced by Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. ~ Cris Judd

When you have a Dancing partner, there's always gonna be a moment where the girl's gonna cry, Ginger didn't do that. But, most every other girl I've worked with have cried because they said "aah, I can't do it" and I have to go "Yes, you can, Shut up!" and they do do it. ~ Fred Astaire

I don't make love by kissing, I make love by dancing. ~ Fred Astaire

Sure he (Fred Astaire) was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did,..backwards and in high heels. ~ Robert Thaves

I grew up with the movies of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire and Judy Garland - these are the kinds of shows and the kinds of numbers in shows that I dreamed of being in and doing when I was a kid. ~ Max Von Essen

When I am asked about influences, I always say I bow down to Fred Astaire, because when you look at him dancing you never look at his extremities, do you? You look at his centre. What you never see is the hours of work that went into the routines, you just see the breathtaking spirit and freedom. ~ Alan Rickman

This is what I understood by it: that for Astaire the person in the film was not especially connected with him. ~ Zadie Smith

For ballroom dancing, remember that your partners have their own distinctive styles also. Cultivate flexibility. Be able to adapt your style to that of your partner. In doing so, you are not surrendering your individuality, but blending it with that of your partner. ~ Fred Astaire

I started dancing when I saw Fred Astaire in 'Flying Down to Rio,' at approximately nine years old. Fred Astaire influenced me, more than anything, to be in 'show business.' ~ Stanley Donen

No one around me was obsessed with Fred Astaire except for me. It just snowballed, really. I started with tap lessons. When I didn't have tap shoes, I taped nickels on the bottom of my penny loafers. ~ David Hallberg

The surviving human beings there could do nothing but wait for the end to come. They chose different ways to live out their final days. That was the plot.** It was a dark movie offering no hope of salvation. (Though, watching it, Aomame reconfirmed her belief that everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.)
**
On the Beach, the 1959 movie, director: Stanley Kramer, writer: John Paxton, starring: Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire & Anthony Perkins. On the Beach, the 1957 novel, writer: Nevil Shute. ~ Haruki Murakami

But I do nothing that I don't like, such as "inventing" up to the arty or "down" to the corny. I happen to relish a certain type of corn. What I think is the really dangerous approach is the "let's be artistic" attitude. I know that artistry just happens. ~ Fred Astaire

I don't like top hats, white ties, and tails. ~ Fred Astaire

Sometimes I take her food from the Iranian restaurant she and Ollie liked - the Sunny Acres kitchen staff is happy to warm it up - and sometimes I bring her a DVD or two. She likes the oldies, like with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I always bring her something, and she's always happy to see me. On her good days she does see me. On her bad ones, she's apt to call me Olivia. Or Charlotte. That's my aunt. I also have an uncle. ~ Stephen King

The unpadded shoulders, the three-buttoned long and boxy coat, the too-short, thin pants, and the thin ties with striped buttoned shirts in dark colors-well, I suppose this may go very well with some personalities but it's not for me. To me, all such look like TV producers. Maybe they want to. ~ Fred Astaire

I always loved all kinds of music. I would watch musicals a lot as a kid, on TV, watch the Fred Astaire movies. I'd watch 'The Wizard of Oz.' I was a big Jerry Lewis fan, and they'd have these big bands and someone singing - some siren, or some guy singing some gorgeous song. I was always enamored of that style of music. ~ Queen Latifah

I don't want to be the oldest performer in captivity ... I don't want to look like a little old man dancing out there. ~ Fred Astaire

I just put my feet in the air and move them around. ~ Fred Astaire

I've worked with Jack Warner and Jimmy Stewart - and Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Johnny Depp twice. I've had dinners with Fred Astaire and Cary Grant. ~ Peter Guber

Via Negativa

Sometimes it's too hard with words or dark or silence.
Tonight I want a prayer of high-rouged cheekbones
and light: a litany of back-lit figures,
lithe and slim, draped in fabrics soft and wrinkleless and pale
as onion slivers. Figures that won't stumble or cough:
sleek kid-gloved Astaires who'll lift
ladies with glamorous sweeps in their hair -
They'll bubble and glitter like champagne.
They'll whisper and lean and waltz and wink effortlessly
as figurines twirling in music boxes, as skaters in their dreams.

And the prayer will not be crowded.
You'll hear each click of staccato heel
echo through the glassy ballrooms - too few shimmering skirts;
the prayer will seem to ache
for more. But the prayer will not ache.
When we enter, its chandeliers and skies
will blush with pleasure. Inside
we will be weightless, and our goodness will not matter
in a prayer so light, so empty it will float. ~ Mary Szybist

Fred Astaire. Not a handsome man. He said himself he couldn't sing. He was balding his whole life. He danced like a cheetah runs, with the grace of the first creation. I mean, that first week. On one of those days God created Fred Astaire. Saturday maybe, since that was the day for the pictures. When you saw Fred you felt better about everything. He was a cure. He was bottled in the films and all around the earth, from Castlebar to Cairo, he healed the halt and the blind. That's the gospel truth. St Fred. Fred the Redeemer. ~ Sebastian Barry

There's an old Fred Astaire movie where the stage becomes bigger and deeper and more complex. Moments like that really did impact on me and influence me. ~ Kenny Ortega

There is a book to be written, for instance, on small errors in subtitles. In the Fred Astaire musical Royal Wedding, for instance, the English girl he falls for, played by Sarah Churchill (daughter of Sir Winston), is engaged to an American, whom we never see but who's called Hal - like Falstaff's prince, like a good high Englishman. That English H, though, was completely inaudible to the French translator who did the subtitles, and so throughout the film the absent lover is referred to in the subtitles as Al - Al like a stagehand, Al like my grandfather. If you have the habit of print addiction, so that you are listening and reading at the same time, this guy Al keeps forcing his way into the movie. "But what shall I say to Hal - that I have never loved him?" Patricia says to Fred. Down below it says, "Et Al - qu'est-ce que je vais lui dire? ~ Adam Gopnik

Fred Astaire is my hero. I love him because he was willing to kill himself to make his art look effortless. And because he proved it's possible to be an artist and a good person. ~ Connie Willis

Dancing, as Fred Astaire said, is next to ditch-digging. You sweat and you slave and the audience doesn't think you have a brain in your head. ~ Ann Miller

Because we are human, because we are bound by gravity and the limitations of our bodies, because we live in a world where the news is often bad and the prospects disturbing, there is a need for another world somewhere, a world where Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers live. ~ Roger Ebert

Why didn't you tell me i was in love with you? ~ Fred Astaire

Dancing in Tijuana when I was 13 - that was my 'summer camp.' How else do you think I could keep up with Fred Astaire when I was 19? ~ Rita Hayworth

Oh, there's no such thing as my favorite performance. I can't sit here today and look back, and say: "Top Hat was better than Easter Parade or any of the others". I just don't look back, period. When I finish with a project, I say: "All right, that's that. What's next?" ~ Fred Astaire

Disco is just jitterbug. ~ Fred Astaire

My uncle, who was a little more flamboyant, always said the guy who dressed the best was Fred Astaire. ~ Andy Garcia

I guess the only jewels of my life were the pictures I made with Fred Astaire. ~ Rita Hayworth

I wanted to be Stan Laurel, then I wanted to be Fred Astaire and then Captain Kangaroo. I actually started out as a radio announcer when I was 17 and never left the business, so that's literally 70 years. ~ Dick Van Dyke

What do dancers think of Fred Astaire? It's no secret. We hate him. He gives us a complex because he's too perfect. His perfection is an absurdity. It's too hard to face. ~ Mikhail Baryshnikov

Fred Astaire is the Carioca, the Continental, the very Piccolino of romance. ~ Archie Frederick Collins

As a dancer, I out-Fred the nimblest Astaire. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Compositionally I always wanted to be like Fred Astaire. ~ Morton Feldman

I felt Michael Jackson was inspired a little bit more from the elegance of a Fred Astaire. Michael loved Sammy Davis, Jr. and James Brown and Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. But he wasn't any of those people. To be inspired is one thing, but he made it all his own. ~ Kenny Ortega

I am the Fred Astaire of karate. ~ Jean-Claude Van Damme

I remember vividly seeing 'Tarzan' and Fred Astaire, the Chaplin films, Fred Astaire musicals, MGM, because of my mother. She was just interested in everything and she took me to opera and ballet, and then ballet got me hooked. ~ Mikhail Baryshnikov

I just told my agent to forget all other projects for me. I was waiting for Audrey Hepburn. She asked for me, and I was ready. This could be the last and only opportunity I'd have to work with the great and lovely Audrey Hepburn and I was not missing it. Period. ~ Fred Astaire

Don't just walk through the flames. Get your Fred Astaire on and DANCE through them. Joy is around everywhere, even when the night falls hard. ~ J.R. Ward

In dealing with a girl or a horse, one lets nature take its course ~ Fred Astaire

Being young isn't about age, it's about being a free spirit. You can meet someone of 20 who's boring and old, or you can meet someone of 70 who's youthful and exciting. I met Fred Astaire when he was 72 and I was 21, and I fell in love with him. He certainly was a free spirit. ~ Twiggy

What I got, unconsciously, from admiring Fred Astaire was that he didn't want what he was doing to look difficult. What was difficult, in my opinion, was making it look so genuine, so effortless. I equally have tried to remain unseen on the screen. ~ Stanley Donen

In America, at the beginning of talkies, they pulled Fred Astaire from the theaters and put him on the screen and had all of these great composers write songs for him. They call it the Great American Songbook; I call it the Fred Astaire Songbook because they were written for him. ~ Tony Bennett

The Fred Astaire movies made a huge impression on me. ~ Anton Du Beke

I have no desire to prove anything by dancing ... I just dance. ~ Fred Astaire

It's nice that all the composers have said that nobody interprets a lyric like Fred Astaire. But when it comes to selling records I was never worth anything particularly except as a collector's item. ~ Fred Astaire

I asked Fred Astaire once when he was about my age if he still danced, and he said 'Yes, but it hurts now.' That's exactly it. I can still dance, too, but it hurts now! ~ Dick Van Dyke

If it doesn't look easy it is that we have not tried hard enough yet. ~ Fred Astaire

The thing is that my idols have always been the types of guys who could do anything: Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Sinatra, Dean Martin; and when you look up to people like that, you don't accept that you need to be compartmentalised. ~ Justin Timberlake

Sure, [Fred Astaire] was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything that he did… backwards and in high heels. ~ Robert Thaves

If Fred Astaire is the Cary Grant of dance, I'm the Marlon Brando. ~ Gene Kelly

The greatness of America is that it produces exuberant geniuses like Louis Armstrong and Fred Astaire and Leonard Bernstein. We are meant to be a jazzy people who talk big and jump on the table and dance; we aren't supposed to be dopey and glum and brood over old injuries. ~ Garrison Keillor

The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it's considered to be your style. ~ Fred Astaire

After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels. ~ Ann Richards

As a dancer, obviously, we are all inspired by Michael Jackson, and I always looked up to Gene Kelly. He was a bigger version of Fred Astaire, and he was amazing as well. ~ Maksim Chmerkovskiy

I can sing as well as Fred Astaire can act. ~ Burt Reynolds

Wrap up the 20th century; Fred Astaire is gone. ~ Jack Kroll

If the dance is right, there shouldn't be a single superfluous movement. ~ Fred Astaire

It's Never Too Late for Rock'N'Roll

It may be too late to learn ancient Greek
Under a canopy of gnats
It may be too late to sail to Mozambique
With a psychotic cat
It may be too late to find a cure
Too late to save your soul

It may be too late to lose the heat
It may be too late to find your feet
It may be too late to draw a map
To the high desert of your heart
It may be too late to lose the poor
It's never too late for rock'n'roll

It may be too late to dance like Fred Astaire
Or Michael Jackson come to that
It may be too late to climb the stair
And find the key under your mat
It may be too late to think that you're
Never too late for rock'n'roll

We have to believe a couple of good thieves can still seize the day
We have to believe we can still clear the way
We have to believe we've found some common ground
We have to believe we have to believe
We can lose those last twenty pounds ~ Paul Muldoon